


Glum and dumb

by Stellacarlberg



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Davey is not feeling well, Depressive Episode, Kind of self-indulgent but who fucking cares, M/M, seasonal depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-16 01:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21499657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stellacarlberg/pseuds/Stellacarlberg
Summary: It wasn’t unexpected. It had been coming for days, creeping up on him so slowly that he didn’t even notice it at first, until it hit him like a ton of bricks.That wasn’t even only metaphorical, it actually felt like he had been hit by a ton of brick.Alternative title: Four people who tried to make David feel better, and one who kind of (but also, not really) succeeded.
Relationships: Jack Kelly/David Jacobs (implied)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39





	Glum and dumb

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! 
> 
> Before we start, I want to make clear that I am in no way a professional when it comes to depression or other mental illnesses. This story is not in any way a perfect showcase of how people feel when suffering from depression and/or seasonal depression, it is simply inspired by (not copied, though) how I sometimes feel during fall and winter, when everything gets colder and darker. 
> 
> Read tags for possible triggers!

New York was gloomy. There’s no other way to describe it for it to make sense, this word contains the whole atmosphere of the gray sky, the wet pavement, the molting leaves and the radiator that was supposed to make the room warmer but seemed to not be working. Gloomy. 

David could feel it in his bones the moment he woke up. A tiredness he couldn’t contain, expressed through a small groan and a deep sigh before he fell back towards his pillows with a dull thud. 

It wasn’t unexpected, it had been coming for days, creeping up on him so slowly that he didn’t even notice it at first, until it hit him like a ton of bricks. 

That wasn’t even only metaphorical, it actually felt like he had been hit by a ton of brick. 

With another sigh he let his hand escape the warmth under his covers and found his phone on his nightstand. The brightness of the screen glared accusingly at him, like it was his fault the room was so dark. It was half past eight in the morning. He had new texts from the groupchat, all of them sent last night because only David would be awake before nine on a saturday, and if someone else was they had better manners than to start sending texts in the groupchat. Most of the messages were about their plans today, the group had decided to go to a nearby mall without actually intending to buy anything. The main argument for this particular excursion had been the newly opened milkshake-place that apparently had thirty different flavors. Both Race and Crutchie had been very impressed. 

David had been looking forward to going. He had spent the whole week finishing a paper for his midterms and wishing for the weekend to come so that he could see his friends. He had longed for the easy conversation about casual topics, without needing to think about deadlines or word counts. 

But now, as he felt the fatigue sink in while reading the texts from his friends, he knew he couldn’t bring himself to go. Instead he sent a quick message to the group, lying about having too much school work, and put his phone away. 

Despite his tiredness, he couldn’t fall back to sleep. He ignored how his phone started buzzing about an hour later, instead just rolled over and started into the wall. 

In the afternoon, a knock on the door interrupted David as he was watching his ninth vine-compilation of the day. He dragged himself up, only motivated by the fact that he had been really thirsty for about an hour but hadn’t had the energy to leave his bed, and now he had been forced to. 

It was Race and Albert, both grinning cheerily. David almost closed the door in their faces, but stopped himself when he remembered that it might seem rude. 

“Hi,” he said, noting the brief reminder from his self conscious telling him he wasn’t wearing pants and that his hair probably looked like a mess. 

“What’s up.” Albert saluted. David almost combusted from the energy it took to not hit him. 

“Nothing much,” David said, and for a moment wished he had pockets to put his hands in. He turned around and walked back into the apartment, not inviting them in but not dismissing them either. 

“We just got back from the mall,” Race said, his voice telling David he was following. “That milkshake-place was fucking lit, man, you would have loved it.”

He probably would have, David agreed silently. 

“We’re going out for drinks later tonight, you’re coming, right?”

“I can’t, I’m sorry, I… have work to do.” The lie easily slipped past David’s lips without meeting any resistance. “But you guys have fun.”

He padded up to the sink and filled a glass with water. The silence behind him made him picture Race and Albert having a silent conversation only with glances, as had been known to happen before. He sipped his water and sighed when he felt them come closer. 

“You wanna see a magic trick?”

David turned around slowly. Race’s face was set in a determined smile and he was indeed holding a deck of cards in his hands. 

“Uh-”

“Or we can play a round of poker. You play poker, right?”

David didn’t, actually. “Race, I don’t have time, sorry.”

Albert reminded them both of his presence by looking up from his phone with a slight triumphant tilt of his smirk. “Okay, okay, right, so there’s a rabbi and a priest-”

David gestured towards the front door, effectively shutting him up. “Bye, guys, thanks for coming by.”

They left, and he went back to bed. 

It had gotten dark - or, well, darker, than the dull gray color that had covered the sky during the day - when the next disturbance came. David, who had just fallen into a light slumber, woke with a jolt and managed to push his phone off the bed. It hit the floor with a small crash, which woke him up even more than the doorbell had already done. 

When he pulled the door open, dressed in the same clothes as earlier but now with a blanket pulled around his shoulders, Crutchie and Romeo stood in front of him. He suppressed a sigh and didn’t even bother with pleasantries. He just nodded and walked back into the kitchen. He leaned on the counter when Crutchie and Romeo came in, looking cheery and a bit unsure, respectively. 

“How are you?” Crutchie asked and sat down at the kitchen table, leaning his crutch on a chair beside him. Romeo put down a plastic bag on the table and then leaned against the fridge in what was obviously feigned casualness. David shrugged when he realized they expected an answer. 

“Anything we can do?” Romeo asked. “I have about eight rom-coms that have the magic ability to make everything better.”

David shook his head. “Thanks, but no. I’m fine.”

They were quiet for a second, then Crutchie tapped his finger on the table. It was a restless sort of energy that wasn’t like him at all. David stared at his finger as they continued to drum on the surface, succeeding in blocking out Crutchie’s words. It took a moment until he tore his eyes away and blinked. “Sorry, what did you say?”

Crutchie’s eyebrows were furrowed and his head tilted as he examined David. “You feeling sick?”

David didn’t answer, mostly because he didn’t know what he’d say. It was bold of them to assume he could understand his own emotions. He could only really understand what he wanted, and right now he wanted to crawl back into bed. The movements of the others, while calm and slow, felt like slaps against his energy-lacking body. Everytime he blinked his eyes longed to stay closed just a little bit longer. He wanted to shut everything out, for it was far too exhausting to stay alert and awake when the whole world had darkened and grown cold in just the last couple of weeks.

He was so tired. 

“I’m fine.”

Romeo opened his mouth as if to argue, but stopped when David stared at him hard enough. 

They left, and he went back to bed. 

He could feel his phone vibrating again. He shut it off. Then he regretted it, because it meant he had nothing to do while laying in bed, except face all his thoughts. 

Why did he feel like this? What was the reason? David was a very logical person, therefore he was very well aware of the fact that not everything in life actually had to have a purpose, but right now he wished it had. He wished he knew the cause of these feelings, the cause of this internal struggle that filled his body every time he let himself relax even for a second. 

Maybe he was just broken. Or maybe he was supposed to feel like this, supposed to lay there in his loneliness and pity himself while others lived their lives like normal. Maybe that was the point. The loneliness. 

The doorbell rang. 

David closed his eyes. 

The doorbell rang again. 

David put a pillow over his head, wishing whoever was at the door to materialize away so he didn’t have to get up. 

The doorbell rang, one more time. 

Then there was the unmistakable sound of keys rattling in the lock, and he heard someone entering the apartment. Maybe he would have been scared, if he could conjure up enough energy to care. 

The sound of feet on the floor, and then hands that gently tugged the pillow away from his face. 

“Heya,” Jack said. 

He didn’t look his best. His eyes were tired, eyelashes low, almost covering the whole of the iris. His skin looked dry, but his cheeks were flaming red, and David put these to together and wondered how cold it actually was outside. 

Jack left, and David felt a jolt in his stomach because he didn’t want Jack to go. But he only went to the kitchen, staying within earshot. He whistled to himself as he filled the boiler with water. It wasn’t a tune David recognized, but that didn’t mean much, it could have been one of the most popular songs of the century and David still wouldn’t know it. But it was calming. Something secure that felt more home than his own bed did. 

“You’ve eaten anything today?” Jack asked, raising his voice enough so that David would hear him. He hadn’t needed to, though, because David had risen and pulled on a pair of sweatpants before padding out to the kitchen. Jack was facing the stove, fiddling with the settings and trying to boil water. David placed his head on Jack’s shoulder, leaning on his warmth and steadiness. Jack hummed. “That’s a no?” 

David nodded. 

“I though Crutchie and Romeo- Oh, here it is.”

Jack turned and opened a plastic bag on the kitchen table. It took a few seconds before David realized it was the bag Romeo had brought with him, and he mused that it looked both out of place and just right, sitting there on the table surface. 

“They got you some food, I thought they told you?”

“No, they didn’t,” David said, leaving out the part where he kicked them out before they got the chance to. 

Jack glanced at him but didn’t acknowledge what had gone unsaid. Instead, he began unpacking. “Okay, let’s see,” he said. “Tea, yoghurt, pasta, pastasauce, chocolate...”

He brought out the bag of pasta and dumped the content into the boiling water. Then he turned back towards David. He crossed his arms. “You haven’t answered your phone.”

“I’ve been busy,” David said. 

“Like hell you’ve been busy,” Jack snapped, and David blinked before lowering his head. A couple of seconds passed until Jack spoke again. This time, his voice was softer again. “You didn’t even answer the door, when I was ringing. Were you sleeping?”

David shook his head. 

“Well, lucky for you I have a spare key, or you would’ve starved to death.”

David sat down in a chair and placed his head on the table. Everything was still for a moment, before Jack came over and placed a hand on his head. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and brushed his fingers through David’s hair. 

“I don’t know.”

Jack nodded. “That’s okay.”

David didn’t tell him that no, it was not okay, it was far from okay, because he didn’t know how that would help the situation. Jack continued patting his head for a few minutes. The only sound in the kitchen was the watch on the wall that ticked the seconds away. 

“You shouldn’t just shut us out,” Jack mumbled at last. “Okay? You say you’re fine, but obviously you’re not. And this isn’t the first time it’s happened, either. It was a long time ago it was this bad, though. Remember last Halloween?”

Of course David remembered last Halloween. He had spent it curled up on his couch staring into the wall because he hadn’t been able to come up with a costume, and in the end he had become to overwhelmed that he simply had stayed home. Jack had come over the day after, hungover and looking for someone to eat breakfast with, and he had found David in that exact same position on the couch. They hadn’t spoken of it since then. 

“Anyway,” Jack continued with a sigh. “Don’t treat us like idiots that don’t notice nothing, okay? The group chat’s been blowing up today, everybody’s worried about you. And don’t act like nothing’s wrong. It’s okay to feel like shit sometimes, even you. Alright? -You do so much for us. Let us take care of you, for once.”

David hadn’t even noticed the tears starting to stream down his face, but just as they did he could feel tension releasing from his body and him relaxing. He cried, and Jack stroked his hair until he had run out of tears. 

Jack stayed, and they went back to bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Say hi on tumblr! @pizzas-will-rule-the-world


End file.
